What Have We Done lately?

I’ve been reading, well rereading the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and at first I’m just reading them because I was bored, and because I had nothing better to do. Then I started thinking about them. Think about it. She was born in 1867 and died in 1957 at the age of 90. Now really think about it. She was born before the telegraph, before light bulbs, not to mention, telephones, cars, airplanes. Radio and Television were both invented during her lifetime, as was both silent and talking moving pictures.

Now think about it again.

What as really been invented in the last 49 years? While we’ve made great strides in medical and technology, aside from personal computers (please note computers did exist in 1957, but they were huge, so it can’t be counted as a “new” invention but really an improvement on an old one). How many things have been invented that we can now not live without? Microwave ovens? Tang? Disposable Diapers, which were all a result of the space race. Ah! The race to the moon. No, that began actually in 1957 damnit. Sputnik was launched, which was the first artificial satellite. Everything that followed was just an improvement.

That’s the catch; they can’t be improvements but instead brand new inventions that no one ever believed possible or heard of before that. So many things were invented in her lifetime that the world had never seen before, or really thought possible. She went from a time before cars to seeing freeways being built. I can’t begin to comprehend what wonders she saw for the first time and I also wonder what she thought about them.

Speaking of Inventions

Could hybrid cars really be the next big thing? Oil companies are making a killing while people (myself included) are pissed off about their personal prices at the pump. Everything trickles down to everyday people, if goods cost more to ship, that cost is reflected in prices you see in grocery stores, even the discount kind. The technology for these cars has been around for some time now but it’s been kept away from people mostly because of the oil companies fears.

Josh Bolton, Bush and Approval Ratings

It would seem that Josh Bolton according to Time Magazine has a 5 point plan for Republicans to win the next election and for Bush to greatly improve his approval rating which has dropped to 32% and for the record, he has some company down there...Former Presidents, Harry Truman in 1952, Richard Nixon 1974, Jimmy Carter 1979, and Bush Senior 1992. All of the above mentioned with the exception of Nixon were in their first term and all their approval ratings sunk to the mid 20's. I was surprised that Lydon Johnson's approval rating wasn't lower, considering the Viet Nam war shit.

Here is the Bolten plan as directly copied from the article:

1. DEPLOY GUNS AND BADGES. This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed- up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). "It'll be more guys with guns and badges," said a proponent of the plan. "Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV." Bush has long insisted he wants a guest-worker program paired with stricter border enforcement, but House Republicans have balked at temporary legalization for immigrants, so the President's ambition of using the issue to make the party more welcoming to Hispanics may have to wait.

2. MAKE WALL STREET HAPPY. In an effort to curry favor with dispirited Bush backers in the investment world, the Administration will focus on two tax measures already in the legislative pipeline--extensions of the rate cuts for stock dividends and capital gains. "We need all these financial TV shows to be talking about how great the economy is, and that only happens when their guests from Wall Street talk about it," said a presidential adviser. "This is very popular with investors, and a lot of Republicans are investors."

3. BRAG MORE. White House officials who track coverage of Bush in media markets around the country said he garnered his best publicity in months from a tour to promote enrollment in Medicare's new prescription-drug plan. So they are planning a more focused and consistent effort to talk about the program's successes after months of press reports on start-up difficulties. Bolten's plan also calls for more happy talk about the economy. With gas prices a heavy drain on Bush's popularity, his aides want to trumpet the lofty stock market and stable inflation and interest rates. They also plan to highlight any glimmer of success in Iraq, especially the formation of a new government, in an effort to balance the negative impression voters get from continued signs of an incubating civil war.

4. RECLAIM SECURITY CREDIBILITY. This is the riskiest, and potentially most consequential, element of the plan, keyed to the vow by Iran to continue its nuclear program despite the opposition of several major world powers. Presidential advisers believe that by putting pressure on Iran, Bush may be able to rehabilitate himself on national security, a core strength that has been compromised by a discouraging outlook in Iraq. "In the face of the Iranian menace, the Democrats will lose," said a Republican frequently consulted by the White House. However, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll this April 8-11, found that 54% of respondents did not trust Bush to "make the right decision about whether we should go to war with Iran."

5. COURT THE PRESS. Bolten is extremely guarded around reporters, but he knows them and, unlike some of his colleagues, is not scared of them. Administration officials said he believes the White House can work more astutely with journalists to make its case to the public, and he recognizes that the President has paid a price for the inclination of some on his staff to treat them dismissively or high-handedly. His first move, working with counselor Dan Bartlett, was to offer the press secretary job to Tony Snow of Fox News radio and television, a former newspaper editorial writer and onetime host of Fox News Sunday who served George H.W. Bush as speechwriting director. Snow, a father of three and a sax player, is the bona fide outsider that Republican allies have long prescribed for Bushworld and would bring irreverence to a place that hasn't seen a lot of fun lately. "White Houses are weird places," he told a 2004 panel on White House speechwriting. Snow had his colon removed after he was found to have cancer last year, but his doctors have approved the possibility of his taking the grueling post.

You can read the whole article here

Finally, how is any of this shit really going to help our economy?

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